If you have not been impressed by what you have seen of Tesla’s newest Self-Driving software beta, ver. 9.2, you are not alone. The CEO of the company, Elon Musk, agrees.
“FSD Beta 9.2 is really not great in my opinion,” he said via tweet last night, “but Tesla’s Autopilot team is improving as fast as possible.”
While Tesla’s Self-Driving software works impressively sometimes, videos from beta testers reveal it coming up short at crucial times. In one footage, a car going toward a small construction site quickly steers toward a hole with an orange cone. Earlier betas have shown Teslas turning in city streets before going toward other cars or plowing through bushes going into the right of way.
The New Timeline
It is not clear if Musk believes Tesla will still reach his year-end goal of getting to Level 5 autonomy—meaning a vehicle that can drive itself at any time without any human input. Musk’s goal lead to questions from the California DMV, who asked the company’s leader of Autopilot applications, CJ Moore whether the time frame was feasible.
“The CA. DMV asked CJ to speak about, from an engineering viewpoint, Elon’s statement about L5 abilities by the end of 2021,” reads a DMV message that summarized the meeting with him. “Elon’s tweet does not match up with the engineering reality according to CJ.”
“Tesla is currently at Level 2. The ratio of driver interruptions has to be in the range of 1 to 2 million miles per driver interruption to go into the higher divisions of automation,” the memo reported. “Tesla said that Elon is expanding on the improvement rates when talking about L5 abilities. Tesla could not say if the rate of improvements would reach L5 by end of 2021.”
Though Musk seems to be upbeat about the Complete Self-Driving 9.3 beta—it is “much improved,” he says—it might be a dead end in development. Previously this month, Musk said via Twitter that version 10 would likely have significant architecture alterations.
This is amid rumors and hints of Apple working on a self-driving car. A move that could give Tesla a formidable enemy in the sector.
Author: Steven Sinclaire
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